Bone Gods

inside her panties.
    Jack licked the line of her shoulder, up her neck, and landed back against her ear. “Pete, don’t tell me that. Please.”
    If she told him no, he’d stop. He wasn’t a bastard. But he made an excellent point, Pete thought, as he rubbed her more insistently, his other hand sliding under her ribs to bring his shirt over her head. She didn’t want to tell him no. She could explain it any way she liked—in the copper way, that told her they’d both suffered a trauma, and were projecting, or even in the plain common sense way, that said hopping back into bed with Jack would net her nothing but headaches. Jack wasn’t reliable under the best of circumstances, and these were far from them.
    Pete knew she wouldn’t throw him out. After six months of thinking she’d never smell him or see him or touch her hand to his skin again, he was here. How and why could be saved for a few hours.
    She rolled over, dislodging Jack’s hand and fumbling at the fly of his pants. He made a gravelly sound in the back of his throat when she drew out his cock, stroking with both hands between their bodies. “Thank you.…” Jack muttered, face in her hair, but Pete shook her head.
    “Shut up, Jack. Please just be quiet and fuck me.”
    He pulled her down to his mouth, hand knotted in the hair at the nape of her neck, and Pete felt him nip her bottom lip. He kissed her as if he were starving until he had his fill, then took Pete by the shoulders and put her on her back, kneeling above her.
    “You’re so fucking beautiful,” Jack said, just a hairsbreadth above a raspy cigarette whisper, and then ducked and lifted Pete’s thighs over his shoulders.
    She grabbed for his hair when he lowered his mouth onto her clit, taking long, slow strokes that made Pete tighten her fingers in the bleached strands. Jack grunted but didn’t lift his tongue, the insistent flicks against her getting quicker and rougher.
    “Fuck,” Pete gasped, lifting herself to press closer against Jack’s mouth. The motion sent a stab through her abused abdomen, but she didn’t, at that moment, particularly care. Being with Jack pushed her straight over the edge—there was no slow, no tender with him. He made her want nothing except him, and what he could do to her, and Pete spread her fingers across the top of his head, urging him on. “Please…” she managed. “Jack, I’m…”
    She felt his fingers dig into her bruises, sharp hot pain contrasting with the slow, trembling contraction of her core. Pete let out a small, involuntary cry when she came, Jack running his tongue against her until she had to fall back on the mattress, boneless.
    Jack stood for a moment, wordlessly stripped all the way out of his denim and pants, and climbed back into the bed, turning Pete onto her stomach. Her heart rate was finally coming back toward regular, and Jack stroked her back again as he nudged her knees apart, mattress sagging under his weight. “Not hurting you, am I?” he asked, urging her hips off the sheets with his hands.
    “No,” Pete muttered, muffled against the pillows. Her aches and bruises protested no matter which way she moved, but she wasn’t about to cry off because of a little pain. Jack slipped one finger, then another, into her pussy.
    “Good,” he said, free hand running across her arse to hold her hip, fingers pressed into the hollow next to her stomach. “You all right to be fucked?” he said, curling his hand inside her. Pete felt a residual rush of nerve endings from being eaten out and squirmed, pressing back into Jack’s hand. He chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
    He replaced his fingers with the head of his cock, guiding it slowly until his pelvic bone pressed against Pete’s arse, Jack inside her to the hilt. “Fuck,” Jack groaned. “This’d drive lesser men mad, you know that?”
    Pete felt a giggle escape her into the pillow. Jack rocked back, then forward. Pete wrapped a handful of sheet in her fists, held on as he fucked her. The worry had gone, and all she really cared about at that moment was Jack’s breath heating the back of her neck. He bent over her, put his forehead on her shoulder, and thrust into her twice, jerkily, before he came.
    Pete lay still for a moment while Jack went to the loo and cleaned up. He came back and wrapped his arms around her. Pete tried not to whimper when he pressed into her bruises, and just focused on the fact that he was there, and that he’d still be